OSU’s newly renovated Student Union
WELCOME TO THE SUMMER 2013 ISSUE OF THE HERITAGE NEWSLETTER Greetings from Stillwater! The past few months have been exciting on the campus of Oklahoma State University. On April 24, we announced that the $1 billion goal of Branding Success: The Campaign for OSU had been exceeded a full 20 months ahead of schedule. With a number of priority projects still to be funded, the campaign will continue through its scheduled conclusion in December 2014. We have all been so proud of the OSU family, whose generosity has made this the state’s first higher-education campaign to raise more than $1 billion. It has already led to the creation of more than 945 new scholarship funds, which combine to produce thousands of annual awards since many support multiple recipients. These donors have also added 134 new endowed faculty positions, which strengthen academic programs and help the university recruit outstanding faculty. This historic support also has created and enhanced programs such as the Learning and Student Success Opportunity (LASSO) Center, and helped renovate and build premier facilities such as the Postal Plaza Gallery and the football program’s indoor Sherman E. Smith Training Center. Just a few days after the “$1 billion and beyond” announcement, the OSU Foundation hosted a daylong Heritage Society celebration on campus. The first such formal event since 2008 for this special group of friends who have included OSU in some aspect of their estate plans, the day included tours of the newly renovated Student Union, Postal Plaza Gallery, Old Central and athletic facilities, as well as a welcome lunch. An afternoon reception highlighting the impact such gifts have on our students and faculty topped off the festivities. More examples of impactful stories are in the following pages. We hope you enjoy reading about how these gifts created lasting legacies across campus. If you want to explore opportunities to include OSU in your charitable planning, please know the Office of Gift Planning is here to help. We can provide information to assist you and your professional advisors in your planning. Ben, Melinda, Nina and I look forward to being of service. For more information, we invite you to call us at 1-800-622-4678 or visit OSUgiving.giftlegacy.com.
THANK YOU!
DAVID MAYS Senior Associate VP of Gift Planning
Nina Phipps, Melinda McAfee, Ben Stahmann and David Mays 1
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Then, Now, Forever FOUR DECADES OF G I B S O N FA M I LY S C H O L A R S Picture today’s Oklahoma State University students walking to class or perhaps rolling on a skateboard. Wearing backpacks and comfortable attire, using ear-buds wired for sound, they would appear alien to the couple who resided on a Logan County ranch during the mid-20th century. One doubts that J.I. and Janice Gibson would recognize OSU or relate to its varied curriculum. Could they imagine the university’s progression to five campuses and online classes? Though gone for decades, “Jake” and Janice still significantly impact OSU’s annual success. During the 2011-12 academic year, more than 200 students received a J.I. and Janice Gibson Endowed Scholarship. They established the fund during their lifetimes and boosted it with a $3 million estate gift. The endowment now exceeds $4 million. So who were these remarkable people who have supported hundreds of students every year for decades? Some from the Oklahoma Bar Association and also Oklahoma agricultural communities may remember Jake, who was born in 1902 and passed in 1967, graduating from the University of Oklahoma in between. His nephew, Oklahoma City-based attorney Horace Rhodes, served as the couple’s legal counsel while they documented their charitable plans. Rhodes remembers Jake practicing law for many years and becoming the first Democrat to represent Lincoln County in the Oklahoma Legislature. Jake also farmed 160 acres along the Logan and Oklahoma County line. He was an avid OU football fan who suffered a non-fatal heart attack at a game. When establishing their estate plans, Rhodes says it was their ties to the agricultural community around Crescent, Okla., that led them to designate a scholarship for OSU students.
Rhodes remembers Jake and Janice, who had no children, as life-long friends totally devoted to one another. They traveled the world and especially loved London. Janice outlived her husband and best friend by 25 years, during which time she continued to support the President’s Distinguished Scholarship they had established. After she passed in 1993, the OSU Foundation staff, who had befriended her, partnered with OSU President James Halligan’s office to arrange a May 1995 campus luncheon for family members. The Gibsons established a tradition of supporting OSU students by creating their scholarship in life, and then adding a bequest of land, stock, cash and mineral interests. Though gone, they continue to lead by example as each Gibson Scholar receives a scholarship designed to reward “students who demonstrate the potential for academic success.” Now picture OSU in another 50 years. Jake and Janice will still be rewarding students with opportunities to fulfill their potential. SUMMER 2013
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Members of the Heritage Society, an honorary group of OSU alumni and friends who have provided for the future of the university through estate gifts, gathered on the beautiful Stillwater campus for the Spring Celebration on April 26. The activity-filled Spring Celebration provided an opportunity for many who are passionate about OSU to reconnect with the campus through special tours of the newly renovated Student Union, Boone Pickens Stadium and Old Central, as well as the downtown Postal Plaza Gallery, scheduled to open in the fall of 2013. The day of reminiscing ended with a special afternoon reception inside historic 3
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Gallagher-Iba Arena. The reception highlighted the impact these passionate, selfless givers are having on OSU’s students, faculty and programs. Based on the positive feedback we have received, we plan to host these events more regularly. Stay tuned in coming months for more information. Please click here to see additional photos from the event.
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SEEKING A BETTER OKLAHOMA: -
THE LIFE OF J.D. EDMONSON -
J.D. EDMONSON spent most of a century serving others. When he passed away in 2011 at the age of 101, his estate added to his legacy of service and generosity. The 1934 animal science alumnus had already given more than $45,000 to his alma mater, with the majority going to the John D. & Dorothy Edmonson Animal Science Scholarship. Per his wishes, his daughters, Eileen Smith and Eloise Schultz, used $25,000 from his estate to help establish a scholarship for 4-H ambassadors. He was a lifelong member of 4-H and the FarmHouse Fraternity. He was proud that a number of the fraternity’s leaders had come through 4-H, and he always admired the organization’s mission to help young people fulfill their potential. “Daddy always believed in giving back or paying it forward, which is evident from his endowed scholarship at Oklahoma State,” Smith says. “He left behind a wish list for Eloise and me to carry out for him at his death, which is why we partnered with 4-H to endow this fund.” That fund also received $25,000 from the Oklahoma 4-H Foundation and qualifies for a $75,000 boost from the estate of Boone Pickens through the Pickens Legacy Scholarship Match. When fully endowed, it will produce
$6,250 in scholarships annually. Meanwhile, his animal science fund is providing more than $2,000 each year. Edmonson enrolled at Oklahoma A&M in 1930, when America was in the grips of the Great Depression. Meanwhile, as Oklahoma suffered through the Dust Bowl, his financial situation was increasingly tenuous. The Clinton, Okla., native worked odd jobs and earned money through 4-H projects, but by his junior year he was down to his last $5 and had little hope of staying. Then OAMC President Henry Bennett, recognizing the severity of student financial need, announced a new policy. It allowed students to enroll for the next semester and continue enrolling as long as they were paid up by the end of that semester. Edmonson told his folks he would see them when his funds ran out.
Now called the Northwestern Electric Co-op, it survives today because of his efforts. One entry in his journal states, “The assistance I was able to provide in organizing the Northwestern Electric Co-op makes me feel good, as it provided a steady source of energy that helped raise the standard of living for the good people of rural areas. I know, because I grew up reading by a coal oil lamp, and later a Coleman lamp.” Fifty years later, Edmonson delivered the welcome address at the cooperative’s annual meeting, a nod to his significance in improving people’s lives. Edmonson had a deep appreciation for the difference improvements in farming practices and electricity services made in rural Oklahoma. He was a farm boy at a time when growing wheat meant harvesting with a binder. The wheat was then shocked by bundles and stored for threshing. The first threshers he remembered were powered by steam. His journal records that the steam engines, being too heavy for bridges,
were forded at creeks. Grain was hauled five miles to Clinton in a wagon pulled by two horses and mules. Each wagon held about 50 bushels. Some grain was stored at home, and most farms grew oats for livestock feed. He saw wheat fields destroyed by green bugs and destruction of crops by prairie dogs. Some farmers would haul straw from the stack and scatter it on the heaviest infestation and set fire to it, which was minimally effective. Like the agricultural industry, Edmonson came a long way over the course of his life. At the annual Animal Sciences Banquet in 2010, when he was 100, he walked unassisted across the stage to greet recipients of the J.D. and Dorothy Edmonson Endowed Scholarship. He and his wife had set up the fund in 2001 to support animal science students. To learn more about the Ambassador Scholarships, please contact Kathy McNally or Denise Unruh at (405) 385-5100.
Through his continued hard work, he graduated on time and began a career with the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service. From 1934 to 1965, he was an agricultural extension agent serving Grant, Kay, Logan and Woodward counties. He guided farmers to more efficient practices, resulting in a better and safer way to earn a living from the land. One of his finest accomplishments was helping charter the Rural Electric Association in 1940.
PISTOL PETE DIDN’T WORRY ABOUT MINIMUM REQUIRED DISTRIBUTIONS… If you’re 70½ or older you can transfer as much as $100,000 per year from an individual retirement account directly to OSU without counting any of that transfer as taxable income. And if done properly, the transfer counts toward that year’s required minimum distribution.
J.D. Edmonson provided hands-on support for farmers, as seen in the photos from Grant & Woodward Counties.
Q U E S T I O N S ? Call the OSU Foundation Gift Planning Office at 800.622.4678, or email giftplanning@OSUgiving.com.
BACKYARD SUPPORT Donors support OSU many ways, including outright cash gifts, donations of property and estate-planning tools such as wills and trusts. An opportunity that isn’t as well known is the gift of mineral rights. Oil and gas royalties could help you achieve your charitable goals. Whether the gift is an entire or undivided fractional interest, it can significantly impact many areas, including scholarships, faculty, facilities and programs. Isn’t turning something in your backyard into a gift that helps students an exciting thought?
For more information, contact the Office of Gift Planning at 800.622.4678 or giftplanning@OSUgiving.com or visit OSUgiving.giftlegacy.com.